<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Sympathy for the Devil by opheliarose</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29610153">Sympathy for the Devil</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliarose/pseuds/opheliarose'>opheliarose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Ending, F/M, Historical Accuracy, Historical Fantasy, I love men who hate themselves, Minor Violence, What-If, Yearning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:34:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29610153</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliarose/pseuds/opheliarose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck around St. Petersburg<br/>When I saw it was a time for a change<br/>Killed the Tsar and his ministers<br/>Anastasia screamed in vain</p><p>Pleased to meet you<br/>Hope you guess my name<br/>But what's puzzling you<br/>Is the nature of my game</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anya | Anastasia Romanov/Gleb Vaganov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sympathy for the Devil</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Sympathy for the Devil</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Stuck around St. Petersburg</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When I saw it was a time for a change</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Killed the Tsar and his ministers</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Anastasia screamed in vain</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Pleased to meet you</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hope you guess my name</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But what's puzzling you</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Is the nature of my game</span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
"Sympathy for the Devil", The Rolling Stones</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>July 17, 1918</b>
</p><p>
  <b>Ekaterinburg</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Gleb Vaganov watched his father, Stepan, through icy iron.</span>
  <span> It was a cold summer’s day, and the world was still sleeping. Gleb was a young man of twenty-two years, little more than a boy in the eyes of his superiors, and regularly reminded of that fact. He had been tasked these past months with the guarding of the exiled Romanov family. </span>
  <b></b>
</p><p>
  <span>“How the mighty have fallen,” </span>
  <span>Yurovsky</span>
  <span> had said with a saccharine smirk as he watched the family working in the yard, their tiaras replaced with rags upon their heads.</span>
  <b></b>
</p><p>
  <span>One girl caught his eyes, the youngest daughter. She stood erect and proud despite her small stature. She had inherited mother’s Germanic coloring, but none of her harsher features. Her hair fell down her back in spun gold strands threaded with auburn, while her visage had a Slavic softness set with diamond blue eyes that shone in the meeting of sun and moon light. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second youngest, Maria, was oft considered the greatest beauty of the four and had attracted the attention of several of the guards. She flirted shamelessly with them and had even </span>
  <span>dared to make eyes at him on occasion, but he had studiously avoided her disgraceful seductions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the guards, Ivan Skorokhodov, had even smuggled in a cake for Maria’s 19th birthday. The pair were later discovered in a compromising position, and the treacherous guards had been promptly replaced with a decidedly less-friendly set. Gleb, in his complete apathy, was perhaps the most amiable of the guards left. Yet despite her mischievous, almost boyish nature, the youngest girl was the only one who had provoked a reluctant smile from his hard lips, making occasional faces at him and even smiling at him once without a trace of irony. Unbidden, the fantasy of what her lips would feel like came over him, striking him like a bullet in the chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The little pair of Maria and Anastasia followed behind the big pair, Olga and Tatiana, in slow strides as though they had the luxury of time. Time, Gleb knew, was the last of the royals’ remaining luxuries. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Gleb had questioned his father what was to become of the prisoners, Stepan had merely replied sternly, “Don’t ask questions, boy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he’d been taught since birth, Gleb did as he was told. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watched the girls stride past his place beyond the gate. Later, in the dark corners of the night when he could not find rest, he swore Anastasia cast a glance in his direction as she passed by him, a silent plea or perhaps a farewell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gleb’s oil black hair fell in his eyes as he strained to see the retreating sea of red-gold that glowed in the dawning light before it disappeared forever. He listened intently for a long while. It seemed as though the world had taken a collective sharp, shuddering breath in anticipation of what was to follow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Without warning, bullets rained from the cellar and screams pierced the misty morning. The world stopped breathing and the last vestiges of his youth were trampled like a footstep in the snow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The men, Stepan among them, carried the bodies over their shoulders like sacks of grain. Gleb studiously avoided looking into their vacant eyes. Stepan carried Anastasia with some dignity, like a bride through a threshold. From his vantage point, she almost looked as though she were sleeping.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, the corpse shot up and her scream pierced the dawn. The knife descended upon her with such sudden savagery that Gleb turned to the bushes and wretched. When he raised his head, his father was beant over the body checking its bloody pulse. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s dead,” he declared after an eternal moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl was unceremoniously deposited on a cart along with the others and hauled off to an unmarked mass grave. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>So this is how the world changes</span>
  </em>
  <span>, thought Gleb. </span>
  <em>
    <span>With a whimper.</span>
  </em>
</p><p><span>*</span>        <span>*</span>       <span>* </span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Gleb stared down the barrel at the woman before him, looking up defiantly with those all-too familiar eyes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>A man could look right into them. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t,” he shook his head. “I can’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly the gun was at his own temple with no recollection of how it had gotten there.</span>
  <span> He continued to gaze into the girl’s - Anya’s, no, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anastasia’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> - Neva-blue eyes. Romanov eyes. How did he not see it earlier? How could he have ever forgotten those eyes that had haunted his most secret dreams for the better part of a decade?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” she cried softly, sweetly, like a prayer. She hadn’t begged for herself, yet she implored him to spare his own life. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Had she pleaded for her family so sweetly?</span>
  </em>
  <span> The thought made him bowl over as though he were going to retch. He had seen her die! His own father had delivered the fatal blow! As they did that frigid summer day, those fathomless eyes bore into his black holes, reaching out to him through the abyss. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gleb, please don’t,” she pleaded again, her gloved hand finding purchase on the gun. He felt the warmth of her skin through the imposing garment as well as the faintest of tremors to reveal her fear. For some reason, knowing she feared for him (or was it still for herself?) was enough to make him relinquish the gun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fell to his knees with a resounding thud. His now free hand clutched at his collar, tearing away the stifling tie that hung around his neck like a noose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, for the first time since he was a little boy, Gleb began to weep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forgive me,” he pleaded, not recognizing his own voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He kissed a gloved hand, cursing the fabric between their skin. He drank in the warmth of her delicate fingers a moment more before forcing himself to look upon her once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe you are Anastasia,” he said earnestly. How could there be any doubt when he was looking into those Romanov eyes? Eyes he had first fallen in love with when they were little more than children.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I remember your father,” she said softly. So soft it fell like a feather on his ringing ears. “I remember </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked up at her, drinking in the lines of her face, unmarred by time or judgment. He nearly wept again at the sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You smiled at me when I teased you, despite your best efforts. You let me have extra bread. You didn’t tell when Ivan brought Maria that cake.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could only stare at the living ghost before him in wonderment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your father...he was one of the executioners. We wouldn’t die. Father and Alexei perished instantly, but the women wouldn’t die because we’d sewn our jewels in our underthings. We thought they were moving us,” she choked, tears flowing from her impossibly blue eyes like the Neva.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They started stabbing us,” her expression was haunted as she placed her free hand over her abdomen. “He - he shot at Olga and Tatiana….he stabbed our maid, Demidova, in the throat with his bayonet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to hear this!” Gleb cried, echoing her statement all those weeks ago in his office.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yet when I cried out, half dead, he took mercy on me. He whispered into my ear “don’t speak” and stabbed me again in the side, where it wouldn’t kill me. Maybe he wanted to make me suffer, perhaps he wanted to give me a chance, but he told the others I was dead. I think...I think it was him that deposited me on the side of the road. I came to in a nearby hospital and they said they had found me on the side of the road. I must have hit my head at some point. I remember they…” she inhaled a shuddering breath like quaking glass. “They hit us over the head with bayonets.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tears had begun to stream again, unbidden and unstoppable. She reached out to him once more, her hand rubbing soothing circles on his back. He closed his eyes and savored the sensation, even as his shoulders tensed still further. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, you see, Gleb, perhaps you are your father’s son after all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he shook his head. He forced himself to meet her regal gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You told me he did his duty. You told me he died of shame,” she said without judgment or pity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Gleb agreed bitterly. “I should have said </span>
  <em>
    <span>in </span>
  </em>
  <span>shame rather than </span>
  <em>
    <span>of </span>
  </em>
  <span>shame. He didn’t kill himself. He was killed that same year in a revolt by peasants. He hid in the basement - like a </span>
  <em>
    <span>coward</span>
  </em>
  <span>. My mother hid the truth from me for years, but I found the file. They knew. They all knew the truth. But they portrayed him as a hero. Now I am as damned as he. I believe I am damned to eternity for </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>pulling the trigger as surely as if I had!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hand did not leave his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean you no harm, Gleb,” she said simply. Yet he knew she could harm him. This mere slip of a girl, waifish and soft, who barely touched his shoulder. She could bend him until he broke apart in her delicate hands. Even now, she could retrieve his gun and shoot him and he would do nothing to stop her. Instead she cried. Not because of him, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>with </span>
  </em>
  <span>him. He did not deserve her tears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>Anastasia. Even though I </span>
  <em>
    <span>saw </span>
  </em>
  <span>you die. I do not know if you are a ghost or a dream or flesh and blood, but I do know you are </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What will you tell them?” he heard the tremor in her voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was damned, he knew. His orders had been to bring the girl back alive or dead. For the first time in his life, he had not obeyed orders. He would return home, give a speech about the girl’s disappearance and the case being closed, and would be swiftly snuffed out with a bullet to the back of his head. Just like his father. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That I was not my father’s son after all,” he forced himself to stand, his legs and lips quivering.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Long life,” he said, hand extended to eternity. “Comrade,” he added softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clasped her hand in his as if to shake it. Instead, he bowed and kissed her hand once more, as befitted her royal status. They were </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>equal after all, he realized. Despite the difference in their heights and ranks in the new order, he felt so far beneath her. She was so close now. Close enough that he could see the perfect Neva blue of her eyes and count the red strands of her hair. He silently mourned her long locks, now styled in a Western fashion that prevented him from seizing handfuls of silken strands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew by the look she gave him that she was aware what fate awaited him in Russia. He would part with her as he would die: with dignity. He gave her a soft smile, recalling a similar encounter in his office where he had shaken her hand. This time it was he who trembled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as he resolved to force himself to retract his hand, he felt her grip tighten. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I always dreamt that my first kiss would be in Paris,” she said softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stared at her unblinking. Surely he had misheard her. Or perhaps she was referring to the street rat she’d come here with. Even now his blood boiled at the thought of her with the conman and the way they had looked at each other at the ballet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted it to be you then. In Ekaterinburg. Or did you not notice?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At last, he blinked, but remained silent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t go back, Gleb,” she implored. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What purpose is there for me without Russia? What direction do I have without orders?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your monarch commands you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could not help the twitch of his lips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m afraid I...cannot obey. Your highness,” he gave a stiff, mocking bow and she half giggled, half sobbed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova would beg to disagree!” she proclaimed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, with surprising strength, her hands found purchase on either side of his face and his lips crashed down upon hers. There was no skill or seduction in her kiss, just raw, unbridled passion with a hint of sweetness. Like her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His knees buckled so that only she and the last vestiges of his dignity kept him upright. He relished the velvet texture of her lips until he could no longer bear being a passive participant. Ignoring every voice in his head, he threw his broad arms around her tiny form and clung to her. She was his lifeline. She was his demise. She was the Neva, and he was drowning in her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But at last she let him up for air, and the waves of reality crashed around them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stared at one another suspended between fantasy and reality. For one moment more he put it all out of his mind. The press conference, the conmen, the new order. He saw only her, looking right into her eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your highness.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>1. Several historical sources and first hand accounts of the execution of the Romanovs were referenced while writing this story. For further reading:</p><p>https://tsarnicholas.org/category/ekaterinburg/ </p><p>https://allthatsinteresting.com/maria-romanov </p><p>https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/death/between-method-and-execution</p><p>2. According to a few reviews and YouTube comments, Ramin Karimloo actually did turn the gun on himself at the end of the Neva Flows reprise. This is something I always thought should have happened in the official blocking. </p><p>3. I have written these characters so that the reader can picture any of their favorite actors or a composite. </p><p>4. The dialogue and blocking is a mix of the Hartford production, the final version, individual choices various actors made (i.e. the hand kiss and back rubbing is based on Jason Michael Evans and Lila Coogan in the tour production), and my own additions.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>